June 3, 1909] 



NA TURE 



407 



tion of a facsimile reproduction of part of the original 

 manuscript of the "Origin of Species," together with 

 portraits of Darwin himself, of Lyell, Hooker, Wallace, 

 and Malthus. 



The Egyptian Gazette of April 21 supplies a report of 

 a lecture delivered at the annual meeting of the Cairo 

 Scientific Society by Dr. Elliot Smith, on the origin of 

 the people of Egypt. He explained that the theories of 

 the earlier anthropologists have now been in a large 

 measure superseded by recent investigations of prehistoric 

 interments, which have now rendered it possible to arrange 

 archaic burials in systematic order. The earliest in- 

 habitants of Egypt with whom we are acquainted were a 

 people slightly below the average height of mankind and 

 of poor muscular development. While they conform to 

 the south European and Arab type, they are more closely 

 allied to the Berbers of the southern shores of the Mediter- 

 ranean. No remains of any population of like age having 

 been as yet discovered in any neighbouring country, it 

 seems clear that their culture was evolved in the Nile 

 Valley, which they must have occupied at a period long 

 antecedent to the earliest remains so far discovered. With 

 the rise of the first dynasty a definite change sets in, the 

 head becoming broader and more filled out, the nose 

 narrower, and the physique improved. Little is known 

 of the origin of this new race, but it seems probable 

 that the original purely Egyptian population of Lower 

 Egypt was modified by the immigration of alien elements 

 entering the delta from the islands or northern shores of 

 the Mediterranean, or wandering along the southern shores 

 of that sea from Libya on the west or from Palestine on 

 the east. The original type was, however, only slightly 

 modified during the Ancient Empire, and at all times large 

 numbers of persons of the pre-dynastic type are found. 

 The modification really set in with the rise of the New 

 Empire. In Nubia the case was different. Here the 

 original type survived in early dynastic times unaffected 

 by the immigration w-hich made its mark in Lower Egypt ; 

 but instead of this influence the race here became subject 

 to another — that of the negro. The Nubian is thus the 

 descendant of pre-dynastic Egyptians slightly mixed with 

 the negro, while the Egyptian of the delta represents the 

 same primitive stock somewhat modified by intermixture 

 with some Mediterranean people. 



The most important paper in the current issue of the 

 Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute is that by 

 the president, Prof. Ridgeway, on the origin of the 

 Turkish crescent. So far from being an ancient 

 Mohammedan symbol, it was not employed by the Arabs 

 or by any of the original nations who embraced the faith 

 of the Prophet, nor was it borne by the Saracens who 

 fought in the Crusades. It was not identified with Islam 

 until after the appearance of the Osmanii Turks, and there 

 is ample evidence that in the time of the Crusades, and 

 long before, the crescent and the star were a regular badge 

 of Byzantium and of its emperors. Comparing the crescent 

 with similar forms of ornament used by other races. Prof, 

 Ridgeway comes to the conclusion that the Turks derived 

 it from two sources, the old amulet made of one or two 

 boars' tusks, and the crescent and star which they found 

 everywhere in their new empire. Without denying that 

 representations of the moon may have been made and 

 venerated by the inhabitants of the Swiss lake-villages, 

 and that, in some regions and in some periods, the crescent 

 ■ of boars' tusks was likened to the new moon, still, with 

 the evidence of Spartan and Danubian metal imitations of 

 boars '-tusk amulets before us, we may conclude with 



NO. 2066, VOL. So] 



some safety that the use of crescents of boars' tusks and 

 of imitations of these was far older in the regions ruled 

 by the emperors of Byzantium than the badge of crescent 

 moon or star. It may well be that the latter was adopted 

 by the emperors of the East from the -Star of Bethlehem. 

 The Turks probably became acquainted with the boar, and' 

 used its tusks as an amulet after their settlement in 

 Asia Minor. In their standard, consisting of the crescent 

 and horse-tail, we may perhaps recognise only another 

 form of the amulet of badger's hair and teeth of wild 

 beasts used now in Italy to protect horses from the Evil 

 Eye. 



The annual statement, in this case for two years, of 

 the collated series of phenochrons, i.e. the earliest observed 

 dates of opening flowers and other natural phenomena, 

 compiled from data supplied by a large number of schools 

 in Nova Scotia and Canada, is published as a report of 

 the Botanical Club of Canada by Dr. A. H. Mackay. The 

 report would be more generally useful if the observations 

 were summarised and a general comparison made with the 

 data of preceding years. 



The mode of formation of balls of weed made by the 

 rolling action of water, both in lakes and in the sea, is 

 discussed by Dr. A. H. Mackay in vol. xi., part iv., of 

 the Proceedings and Transactions of the Nova Scotian 

 Institute of Science. It is suggested that the deposition of 

 a mass of molluscan or other eggs on a basis of sea- 

 weed might, by furnishing agglutinate matter, start the 

 formation of such a weed-ball ; but in other instances roots 

 of algas serve as a nucleus,, while in some cases the whole 

 structure consists of the finer kinds of brown algas. 



.^ CONTRIBUTION, by Dr. S. Yamanouchi, to the cytology 

 of Fucus, dealing chiefly with the first and second nuclear 

 divisions in the oogonium and with the antheridium of 

 Fucks vesicidosus, appears in the Botanical Gazette 

 (March). The details of the mitoses, with numerous excel- 

 lent figures, are given, but a full discussion of the fertilisa- 

 tion process is reserved. Regarding the number of 

 chromosomes, it is found that sixty-four chromosomes are 

 present in the Fucus plant, and that the reduction to half 

 that number occurs at the end of the first two nuclear 

 divisions in the oogonium and antheridium initials. Each 

 of the four nuclei then produced contains thirty-two uni- 

 valent chromosomes, and this persists to the sperm and 

 egg- 



An account of the vegetation in and around the Red- 

 rock Lake, Colorado, published in the University of 

 Colorado Studies (vol. vi., No. 2) by Dr. F. Ramaley, is 

 interesting since the lake is situated at an altitude of 

 about 10,000 feet, and the growing period is limited to a 

 few months. Four zones are demarcated ; Nymphaea 

 polysepala provides the most abundant aquatic type, while 

 Carex utriculata, with other species of Carex and Caltlia^ 

 leptosepala, are conspicuous in the sedge zone. The 

 willows and Betula glandulosa are dominant in the shrub 

 zone, beyond which the forest area lies, where Picea 

 Engelmanni forms almost pure stands in wetter localities 

 and Pinus flexilis, with Pinus nutrrayana, dominate the 

 drier situations ; Vaccinium oreophilum is the most 

 characteristic undershrub in the woods. 



May usually has a large amount of bright sunshine, but 

 this year it has beaten all previous records, not only for 

 the corresponding month, but for any month since the 

 sunshine records for London were started in 1880. The 

 duration of bright sunshine was 297 hours at the report- 

 ing station of the Meteorological Office in Westminster^ 



